


525,600

by Liz_Night



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, mostly aus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 17:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21377911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liz_Night/pseuds/Liz_Night
Summary: A year of Obikin ficlets. Prompts taken from DownWithWritersBlock's monthly prompt list.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	1. Reset

**Author's Note:**

> So, come to find out, it's really difficult to keep a story line straight when you're writing at work and your job isn't what you're writing. So, while I fix all the problems that I made by doing that to Iris, I've got some short stories that I've been working on to keep me from losing my mind.

Anakin stared at his master. 

They sat across from each other on different sides of the small ship. Obi-Wan refused to even look at him.

“I don’t understand how what I did was so wrong,” Anakin finally spoke into the silence. Obi-Wan flinched and Anakin sealed his lips shut once more.

“You… you threw yourself on top of me. In front of all of those beings.”

“They were trying to kill you. I had to protect you.”

Obi-Wan stood and crossed to the front of the ship, looking out into space as he rubbed a hand across his stubble. “Anakin,” he finally said slowly. “You can’t do that.”

“But you would have died! I can always be repaired,” Anakin argued.

Obi-Wan looked back at him and winced.

Anakin looked down at himself, confused. He wasn’t badly damaged. Obi-Wan had fixed much worse than this many times before. What was a ruined arm and half a torso when compared to Obi-Wan’s life?

Obi-Wan knelt before him and he looked up. The man brushed a hand through his hair. 

“Anakin, I don’t want you to remember this mission or ever think about putting me before yourself ever again. Can you do that for me? Can you reset?”

Anakin exhaled. “If I must, Master.”

Obi-Wan leaned forward, pressing his lips to Anakin’s forehead. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. 

Anakin shut his eyes and smiled. No where else but in his master’s arms ever felt so safe. He felt all of his functions slow and shut down as he silently reset himself.


	2. Ancient

Obi-Wan Kenobi pushed up his glasses to rub at his tired eyes. Translating dead languages could be interesting, but it could also be tedious. 

A click by his elbow had him smiling up into a younger man’s face. 

“Headache, Obi-Wan?” 

He hummed. “Slight one,” he admitted.

“Drink your tea,” he said, nodding towards the cup he’d set down.

“Where would I be if you weren’t my assistant?” Obi-Wan said as he leaned forward.

“Lost and starving,” the other man muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything,” he said as he pulled a chair out and sat across the desk from him. “Anything interesting?”

Obi-Wan looked back at the delicate pages he was translating and his notes beside them. He re-read his notes before answering to make his assistant wait longer. “From what I gather,” he paused before continuing. “This was written after a city was sacked. The writer and their family escaped through the catacombs beneath the city.”

Anakin visibly perked up. “A catacomb escape route? Could it still exist?”

Obi-Wan sat back, sipping his tea. “I believe that it could. If I remember my geography correctly, it would be right beneath the Vatican.”

Anakin stared at him. “An ancient city beneath the Vatican?” he finally said. “When can we go?”


	3. Dead as a Doornail

Anakin wiped sweat and grime from his face. It was so quiet in the abandoned general store that it set his nerves on edge.**  
**

“Anything out there?” he called.

“Street still looks clear,” Padme called back. “Hurry up.”

He opened his sack and started swiping things off of the shelf and into it. Water went first, food that would keep next. Last he looked over the meager medical supplies and took the few things they could use.

“Okay, I’ve got it all. Let’s go,” he said as he came up beside her. She didn’t take her sights off of the road, those of her eyes or her shotgun.

“It doesn’t seem normal, right?” she whispered. “We haven’t seen a zombie since we got into town.”

“I know,” he said. “This place gives me the creeps. We should hurry.”

She nodded, and they left the shop as quickly and quietly as they could. The only sounds that they could hear were their footsteps and a soft breeze.

They’d barely rounded a corner when Padme pulled him back.

“What did you see?” He whispered into her ear.

“I’m pretty sure that it was a body,” she replied just as softly.

Anakin slowly peered around the corner and saw an unloving lump vaguely person-shaped in the street, just as she had said.

He bit his lip. “It could be another survivor.”

“It could be a trap.”

He looked back at her. “I don’t think I could forgive myself if it wasn’t and I let the zombies just have him.”

Her face fell, but she didn’t audibly groan. “Just this once. What’s the plan?”

Anakin swallowed and looked around the corner again, surveying the area better. “I’ll check him over for marks. If there are none and he doesn’t try to eat us, I’ll move him to the building closest to him.”

“And me?”

“I need you to watch my back. If he goes for me, put him down,” he said. “There’s no one I trust more.”

Padme rolled her eyes. “If this gets us turned, I’m eating you first, zombie or not.”

“Threat acknowledged.”

“Promise really.”

They moved silently closer to the body on the ground. Soon Anakin recognized it as a red-haired man a few years older than him. 

Putting all of his trust in Padme, he set his gun on the ground and touched the man’s shoulder.

He didn’t so much as stir.

Anakin pulled him onto his back and glanced over the man’s body quickly. “No bites or cuts,” he whispered.

“Is he still alive?” Padme asked.

Anakin swallowed and touched the skin of his wrist. He sighed at the steady thrumming beneath his fingertips. “Yeah, yes.”

“Are we moving him?”

Anakin glanced around. The street was still empty and there was a boarded up shop behind them. “I’ve got him, you get the door.”

Padme started backing up towards the building as Anakin shouldered his gun and grabbed the man beneath his shoulders.

He heard the door open and glanced back to see Padme clear the building. She looked back and nodded. He stood and dragged the man back and into the building. Padme shut the door behind them and braced the door with an old chair.

They stared down at the man. 

“So… Are you?”

Anakin gulped and nodded. “Yeah, I just…”

“I know. The quicker, the better.”

“Yeah, just, um, don’t stare,” he said as he kneeled down. His cheeks were stained red.

“I wouldn’t, pervert.”

Anakin ignored her as his hands fell to the man’s shirt hem. He pulled it up and over the man’s head. He scanned his torso and arms quickly and sighed. “Good so far,” he muttered.

He pulled his shoes and socks off and looked at the pants. This really shouldn’t be as awkward as it was. It was survival, not stripping an unconscious man for kicks.

“Do you want me to?” Padme asked gently.

He shook his head. “No, I’ve got it. The quicker the better.”

Gripping the waistband, he yanked the pants down. 

The man’s body was slim. He’d missed more than a few meals obviously, but, really, who hadn’t at this point. His pale skin was thankfully unblemished, but flushed. 

Frowning, Anakin felt his forehead. “He’s got a hell of a fever,” he said and laid his ear against the man’s chest. “And some congestion.”

“Is this normal or has the virus started spreading in other ways?”

Anakin raised his head and his eyes caught on a silver chain around the man’s neck. He lifted the man’s head until he found the pendant hanging from it. 

It was small and silver. A symbol like a sideways, curved E with a circle around it. ‘Obi-Wan’ was inscribed on the back. 

He looked up at Padme. “He’s a Jedi.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”


	4. "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." -Soren Kierkegaard

“Hi, I’m Anakin,” he said. “And you are?”

The other man blinked at him. “I'm… I’m Ben,” he finally responded, his voice rough.

“Okay, Ben, why have you been staring at me for the past hour?”

He stared at him, mouth opening and shutting. “You look like someone I knew,” he blurted out.

Anakin raised his eyebrow. “As pickup lines go, I’ve heard better.”

Ben shook his head. “It’s not a line. It’s the truth.”

Anakin sat down next to him at the bar. “Well, this is my first time in England and you don’t look familiar to me.”

Ben shook his head. “No, he wasn’t you. It couldn’t have been.”

Anakin bit his lip and motioned for the bartender. As the man set down two beers in front of him, he turned back to Ben. “Tell me about your friend.”

He shook his head. “He wasn’t my friend.”

“Your lover, then.”

Red stained the man’s cheeks. “No. No, we didn’t know each other that long.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Both men looked on the other side of Anakin to see a man sit down beside them. Anakin blinked. Something about the man looked wrong, but the only thing that wasn’t normal was a black tattoo that disappeared under his collar.

“Maul,” Ben bit out. Anakin turned and looked at him. His face was twisted in anger and, for a moment, Anakin was afraid. “Why are you here?”

“You know why,” the man said as he looked at Anakin. He propped his chin up on his hand.

“Leave him alone.”

“What are the two of you talking about?” Anakin said, looking between them. He gripped the edge of the bar to hide his shaking hands.

“Ben here has probably just noticed my phaser set on you, is all,” the man said with a grin. “Or he just knows me well.”

Anakin looked down. In the hand farthest from him was a slim silver gun. It almost looked like a child’s toy, except it was actual metal.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Anakin said. “This isn’t Star Trek. If this is some prank-”

“It’s not a prank, Anakin,” Ben said tightly, never taking his eyes off Maul.

Anakin looked between them and his heart sped up. “Why?”

Maul grinned at him. “Because every time he meets you, you die.”

“Not this time, Maul,” Ben said. “Just let him walk away.”

Maul looked at the other man. “That’s never going to happen. His existence is an anathema to time.”

“I won’t let you.”

Anakin backed away from the bar and both sets of eyes fell on him. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in his throat.

His eyes fell to Maul’s hand and the gun still in it. He shut his eyes as the hand started to tense and turned his head away.

The shot was like a whisper and a body slammed into his, causing him to stagger.

His eyes blinked open, and he fell to his knees, cradling Ben in his arms.

Anakin looked up. Maul stared down at them in disgust before walking away.

People around them finally took notice and started screaming and running.

“Why would you do that?” Anakin asked, his hand hovering over the blackened wound in the man’s side.

Ben smiled up at him. “I couldn’t lose you again.”

“But,” Anakin looked down at his hands and back at him. “You don’t know me.”

Ben raised his hand and touched Anakin’s cheek. “You’ve saved me so many times before. I just wanted to save you. Just this once.”

Anakin stared down at him. “Please don’t die,” he whispered.

Ben raised his head as much as he could and Anakin leaned down to hear.

“I’m only human in appearance.”

Anakin jerked his head back.

Ben was grinning up at him. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get to my ship.”

“Where is it?” Anakin asked.


	5. Light Switch

“Ben, there you are!”**  
**

He turned to see a boy and a girl running to catch up with him.

“You know that you shouldn’t run in the halls,” he said as they reached him.

The girl, Padme, simply shrugged and smiled.

The boy, Anakin, made a face. “Are you trying to be made the youngest prefect?”

“Well, not everyone can get detention in the first three days of term.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Anakin said, crossing his arms and pouting.

“We were hoping you could help us with charms,” Padme interrupted.

Ben backed up towards the wall, bringing them out of the flow of people. “Which charms?”

“Wand lighting and extinguishing,” Anakin said, looking at the ground, his cheeks red.

Ben raised his eyebrows, but shrugged. “Sure, let’s go to one of the spare classrooms.”

“I know one,” Anakin said. “It’s right near the kitchens. I’ll get us some snacks.”

The boy ran off and Ben once again wondered why he spent so much time with younger students from other houses.

“He’s afraid,” Padme whispered.

“Why?”

She looked at him and rolled her eyes like it was obvious. “He’s afraid his spell will be too strong.”

Oh. It was obvious.

“He’s been having more accidents in class?” he asked as they started walking down the corridor.

“A few,” she admitted. “He won’t tell me about the classes that we don’t have together.“

"Is anyone bullying him?” Ben asked, stopping her with a hand on her elbow.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve heard people talking about his magic being unstable, but they know I’m his friend. They don’t talk around me.”

“You’re both eleven. It’s normal for magic to still be a bit wild,” Ben said.

“Ben, if it was just the spells not working it would be normal. But they work too much.”

“And it’s scaring your year mates.”

“Exactly.”

Ben sighed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what I can really do. I’m only a year ahead of you two. Have you told his head of house? Professor Sprout could help.”

Padme made a face. “He refuses to and made me promise not to at the beginning.”

They turned the corner and saw Anakin standing by the door to a room, his hands full of sandwiches and cakes.

“Would you two hurry up?” He called.

Padme and Ben exchanged a fond smile and followed the younger boy into the room.

They sat on top of tables and the sandwiches while they talked. Ben watched as the other boy relaxed as he seemed to forget why they’d come.

They looked up as the door opened and a boy smirked from the doorway. “Wittle Anakin, gone to cry to your only friends?”

Ben glanced at Anakin and saw the boy staring into his lap, his muscles tense.

“Clovis, go away,” Padme said, standing up.

“Oh, you need your girlfriend to stand up for you?” The boy taunted. His eyes fell on Ben. “Or do you need your boyfriend to do all your magic for you so you don’t blow all of us up?”

The blood drained from Anakin’s face and he shot up and pushed past Clovis. The three listened to his footsteps rush away.

“Ben, can you go check on him?” Padme said, her voice low and tight. Ben looked at her, gulped, and nodded. “I’ll deal with my friend here.”

Ben shook his head at Clovis as he passed. Walking down the hallway, he heard the thwack of flesh hitting flesh. He had the feeling that Padme knew exactly how to throw a punch.

Anakin was nowhere to be seen. He looked everywhere he could and asked if anyone had seen the boy. Finally, some older students studying in the great Hall said that they’d seen him run outside.

Ben looked out at the growing darkness and had a bad feeling he knew exactly where Anak8n had gone. He breathed in, gathering his courage, and ran towards the Forbidden Forest.

The trees thickened and slowed him to a walk. He called Anakin’s name in a whisper, scared of anything else that would respond.

He squinted into the darkness and pulled out his wand. “Lumos,” and the tip of the wand lit, calming him.

He heard a growl to his right, and he swung around, searching the darkness. He saw nothing.

“Anakin,” he called.

“Ben?”

The boy came into view, pale in the wand light.

Ben sighed in relief. “There you are. Let’s get out of here.”

“Why’d you follow me?” He asked, standing still. “You heard Clovis. If you keep being my friend, everyone else is going to think the same thing.”

Ben looked past the trees around them. He thought he heard another growl and a howl in the distance. “What? That we’re dating? We’re too young for that.”

“What if he was right?”

Ben looked up at Anakin.

“What if I like you?”

“Anakin,” Ben sighed. “You’re my friend and we’re still kids. But I will say that you don’t need me for magic.”

Anakin rushed forward and hugged him. “Thank you,” he whispered into his robes.

Ben wrapped his arms around him. “You’re welcome. Now can we go?”

The boy laughed and nodded. He let go, and they started back, side by side.

“How’d you know where to find me anyway?” Anakin asked.

Ben shrugged, looking down at his feet. “I just knew,” he muttered.

There was a split second where he saw the tree root before his feet caught on it. He was sent sprawling across the dirt, his wand clattering from his fingers. As the light began to dim, he looked up and saw a creature step between them and the wand.

“Ben, are you-.” Anakin cut himself off as multiple growls filled the air. “What’s that?”

He pulled himself to his knees and leaned into Anakin’s legs. The boy’s hand fell to his shoulder and Ben could feel it shaking against him. 

“Gytrashes,” Ben whispered.

“You lost me,” Anakin said, his voice high.

Ben tried his best to remember the lesson near the beginning of term. He wished he’d paid more attention. “They appear as horses or large dogs. Usually along roads, but can also inhabit forests.”

“I can see that,” Anakin yelped as some of the creatures drew closer. 

“They lead travellers astray,” Ben rattled off. “And… And they fear wand light!”

“But your wand is over there!” Anakin cried as he looked down.

“You can do it,” Ben reassured him. “You have to.”

“But what if my wand explodes?” Anakin whispered. 

“It won’t.”

Ben saw Anakin swallow and take his wand out of his pocket. The gytrashes stopped circling them and stood, their growls deepening.

Anakin lifted his wand and cast, “Lumos!”

Light flooded the clearing, blinding Ben. He heard the creatures yelping as they ran from them.

He blinked and saw an image of Anakin. He looked different, but his wand was aloft, proud and confident. He blinked again and realized his Anakin, the real one, was younger and squinting back at him.

Ben cleared his throat. “I told you that you didn’t need me for magic.”

Anakin fell to his knees beside him, the light dimming but staying steady around them. They stared at each other as their adrenaline wore off.

“I was scared,” Anakin whispered. 

“Me, too,” Ben agreed, reaching out and taking his hand.

They turned as they heard twigs snapping, hands clenching together. Familiar voices soon followed, and the boys relaxed.

Professors Sprout and Flitwick broke through the trees, Padme following close behind. When her eyes fell on them, Professor Sprout’s sigh of relief was audible.

“Mr. Kenobi, Mr. Skywalker, you do remember that this forest is forbidden, correct?” Professor Flitwick asked.

“Yes, Professor,” Anakin said. “It’s my fault.”

Sprout snorted. “Miss Amidala told us what happened. Mr. Clovis will be educated on Hogwarts’ policy on bullying.”

Ben staggered to his feet, testing his ankle. It was tender, but held his weight.

“Are you okay?” Flitwick asked softly.

Ben nodded. “I tripped and dropped my want. Gytrashes must have followed me because they closed us in. Anakin saved us with his spell.”

Flitwick’s lips twitched. “We saw that,” he finally said. “From the castle.”

“Mr. Skywalker,” Sprout said. “Anakin, have you been having trouble with your magic?”

Anakin looked down, but nodded. The light from his wand dimmed.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “You’ll have to have some extra lessons for a while, but we’ll get it figured out.”

Anakin’s head jerked up. “It can be fixed? I’m not dangerous?”

Sprout smiled gently at the boy. “Some spells could be, even a levitation charm, but it’s still early. It will be hard work, but it will make you a better wizard.”

“I’ll do it,” Anakin breathed.

Padme pushed Ben’s wand into his hand. “I guess it worked out?” She whispered.

Ben nodded.

“Okay, children, wands lit and back to the castle,” Sprout said.

“I doubt anything is near us that could be dangerous after that spell,” Flitwick said. “But it’s best to be cautious.”

Anakin cast the spell, the tip of his wand lighting back up, and grinned up at Ben. His heart skipped a beat.


End file.
